Birthrite (Legacy Series Book 2)

by Max Ellendale

  I watched the rays of the setting sun beam in through the kitchen windows as I thought things over. So much had changed in only six months. If I thought about it too much, I got nervous so instead I thought about Mal. I missed him when he was gone and that scared me, too. I never thought that I would ever have a mate, let alone a mate like him. Despite the fact that he is closer to his beast and I know full well how dangerous he could be, he is the gentlest man I've ever met, and in a way, the gentlest wolf. I worried that once I told him everything that he wouldn't want to be with me anymore. Part of me knew that it didn't work that way, but the other part of me wanted to deny it completely.

  Once mates choose each other, the bond is very difficult to break, not that I would ever want to. I liked the idea of being with Mal forever, but for werewolves, sometimes forever was a very short time. The bond between mates was a gift from Gaia, my mother used to say. Sometimes the lives of werewolves ended in a battle to the death at a young age and as a reward, Gaia provided them with intense, fiercely romantic, lasting relationships to help them feel whole and be more powerful. This contributed to their constant desire for physical contact with their mates. Mal prefers that I sit in his lap, and part of that is a possessive thing, but a larger part is the feelings that we both get from being so close. My mom always said that it's almost euphoric for werewolves to have a lot of physical contact with their mates, and pack mates as well, but to a different extent. I wondered how Vanessa would fit in with all of this. Werecats take mates just as well, though not always. A lot of them choose solitary lives though in Vanessa's pride, it didn't seem like the norm. What would all of this be like for her if she and I couldn't share a mate bond? Would it drive us apart? I didn't know a life without her and I couldn't imagine it. Couldn't bear the thought.

  Through all my denial about my Breeder side, one thing I always fantasized about was the bond between mates. It was almost like believing in a fairytale where two people who were perfectly compatible fall madly in love and live happily ever after. It's not without its trials I'm sure, but thinking about what that must feel like had put my soul at ease. During my worst moments, that was the thought that I would call upon to soothe me. That one day I'd be rescued by my knight with shiny fangs. Maybe that's why I was so safe with Mal—maybe he was the knight of my dreams.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The guys returned home in the early evening with little news about the search. Caden said that Hank believed the captors knew that we were onto them because there hadn't been another kidnapping since Alice. It made sense. Soon, the news would start covering other stories and eventually the disappearances would become old news.

  Xany and I served the guys dinner in the main room while we watched a movie. They seemed tired and I imagined it was more from the emotional stress of coming up empty on the search. Werecreatures are highly emotional beings who have to be looked after during stressful times, especially in times of mourning. Werewolves are particularly prone to depression. I'm not really sure why but when they're disheartened, they often become rash and can slip into something like a coma or catatonia. I've only seen it happen once and I was really too young to understand why.

  That night, Mal and I lounged in my bed with the window open and enjoyed the subtle breeze that blew in off the lake. I had my head on his chest as the full moon rose just above the tree line. As soon as the light caught his eyes, his pupils constricted and his heart beat faster in my ear.

  "When was the last time you ran?" I asked him.

  "It's been awhile."

  Wolves often went for long runs to relieve some of their pent-up energy and to feel the exhilaration that always seemed to tempt them. They loved the chase and would follow a rabbit or coyote for miles just for the fun of it.

  "Your wolf wants to. I can see him in your eyes."

  "Can you see my beast in my eyes?" he asked.

  "Not right now." I smiled and ran my finger along his jaw line, which made him grin.

  "My wolf likes you."

  "So I've been told. How about your beast?" Essentially, werewolves believed they were three parts of a whole; man, wolf, and beast. This isn't true of all werewolves, however, mainly those of the Americas.

  "He's rather fond of you. Your scent makes him hungry." A wicked grin spread across his lips.

  "Don't eat me, big bad wolfy," I jested.

  "I'd never let him eat you, but I may let him kiss you every now and then." He laughed softly and brushed his lips over my cheek.

  "I won't protest," I said as he guided me into a kiss.

  Just then, Vanessa appeared beside the bed after bending through the windowpane. Not expecting either of us to be in the room, she greeted us with a hiss then crouched beside the bed. Her eyes locked on Mal. Her posture caused an instant response in him. His chest began to rumble and he moved so that he was stretched across me.

  "Stop it, both of you," I said.

  Normally my call to cease fire would stop them but tonight it didn't work. Vanessa hissed again and I heard the explicit gurgling growl in her torso. Mal met her growl with one of his own and his fur bristled on his forearms as he fought the change. With him above me, I couldn't move. Vanessa's fingernails dug into the carpet and I watched her eyes transform into piercingly yellow irises with slender slit pupils.

  "Stop it!" I shouted and tried to wriggle out from under Mal.

  Vanessa's hand twitched as she prepared to swat at him. I knew that if she followed through with that gesture, I'd have two giant beasts tearing apart my room.

  "Vanessa! Don't you dare," I threatened.

  I watched as she fought the urge to tear her eyes away from Mal to look at me. I was able to slither away from him enough to put myself between them and break their gazes, which was a dangerous move by any sort. The growling immediately ceased when my mates saw me. Their instinct to protect overran their instincts to attack. Mal wrapped his arm around me and rolled back into a sitting position with me in his lap. Vanessa remained crouched until her eyes shifted back to their usual emeralds. When the tension released, my eyes welled with tears. When Vanessa saw this she went to move toward me, but stopped when Mal gave her a warning glare. I thwapped his arm.

  "Stop it. I won't have you two fighting over me! I'm not the property of either one of you so just stop it." A sob caught in my throat.

  "I'm sorry, Shawnee, she caught me off guard." Mal drew his gaze from me to Vanessa who cautiously sat down on the bed beside us. I wiped my eyes and avoided looking at either of them.

  "I'm sorry, too," Vanessa said.

  "Sorry doesn't fix any of it at all," I said. "You two need to control yourselves better than that. Someone could've gotten hurt."

  Mal rested his chin on my shoulder and Vanessa put her hand on my knee. I calmed down when both of them touched me, but it didn't fix the images that kept running through my mind of Vanessa tearing out Mal's throat or vice versa. Suddenly I remembered the dagger protruding from Vanessa's stomach and my breath caught in my throat. I could lose them both. I gripped my shirt as the panic snuck up on me...

  They'll be dead, both of your mates will die and you'll be alone. Their hearts will pump blood onto your hands and the only thing you'll have left is the taste of it in your mouth.

  "Shawnee?"

  I heard my name being called several times by different voices only to find myself huddled in the corner of my bed with both Mal and Vanessa watching me. Vanessa had tears rolling down her cheeks and Mal looked almost as pale as she did. I looked between them just as I noticed my heartbeat slowing down. I pulled my knees to my chest and dropped my head down on them. I wasn't as upset as I usually was after a panic attack but this one was different. The voice was different. Instead of hearing my father's echoing voice saying the same horrible things he had while he was abusing me, his voice said something completely different. Something that tapped into my deepest fears.

  Look at me, Shawnee. Mal's voice interrupted my thoughts and rattled my brain.

&
nbsp; I'm sorry.

  Don't be. We caused this, not you.

  Finally I looked up at the two people I loved more than anything in the world, whose faces seemed more scared than mine. I crawled into Mal's extended arms and held my hands to Vanessa. She laced her fingers with mine.

  "Can you both sleep in here tonight without getting all mean?" I asked them.

  "Yes," Vanessa said right away.

  "Of course," Mal agreed.

  With that, I guided them to lie on the bed with me in the center. Vanessa seemed content to rest beside me with her hand on my stomach, and Mal kept his arm around me while he toyed with my hair. I hated the fact that I had a panic attack but I was also still a little angry at the way they treated each other. I knew it wasn't completely their fault. Cats and wolves are expected to disagree, but it didn't make me feel any better. It made me feel like I had to choose between them and I hated it. I didn't want to choose. I wanted them both all the time, just like this.

  These thoughts swam around in my head and I closed my eyes in hopes of calming them. My mates remained silent. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Vanessa looking at Mal and nodding very faintly. They must've been talking because when they saw me watching, they both shifted their weight. I obsessed over what they could possibly have to say to each other privately until I fell asleep due to the sheer effort it took to keep myself from crying.

  ***

  The next morning, I was up and showered early in order to spend some time working on my résumé. I took my computer into the new addition of the house that Caden and Hank completed a few weeks ago, and sat on the floor beside an empty bookshelf. I left Mal and Vanessa sleeping in bed together, which I had to admit wasn't the best idea, but they needed to get along if we were going to make this work. I needed some time away from them and sitting in the empty addition seemed like a quiet enough place. There was no furniture yet, only bookshelves that were built into the walls with a bunch of big windows on either side. Hank's contractors were still working on the bathroom and the heating and cooling system. It was somewhat sweltering in there but it was worth it for the privacy.

  It only took me about twenty minutes to finish my résumé and send it off to print from Xany's printer. I wrote up a quick cover letter making sure to omit "can randomly commit acts of spontaneous healing" from appearing anywhere in it. When I emerged from my hiding place, everyone was gathered in the kitchen except for Mal who was in the shower. Vanessa sat on the kitchen counter watching Xany scramble eggs.

  "You could help you know, you lazy cat," Xany muttered.

  "No thanks," Vanessa responded.

  "Be careful there, Ness, she might stop making the salmon that you like." Caden laughed.

  "Yeah, and I'll stop buying you cream too," Xany added. Vanessa hissed at them and slid from the counter to begin setting the table. Xany giggled at her before looking at me. "Morning, Nee."

  "Morning."

  Vanessa avoided my gaze as I made my way over to wrap her up in a hug. Her entire body eased with the gesture and she started purring quietly. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  "I know."

  "Don't set a place for us, Ness, Shawnee and I will be leaving in a minute," Caden said.

  "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "To the hospital to turn in my résumé. I'm meeting with one of the administrators today," I said.

  "Oh," she said and scrunched up her nose.

  "I know you don't want me to work but I need to start thinking about it at least," I said.

  "Think slower," Vanessa said through a pout.

  "And it'll be good networking for when I open my private practice," I said, and tried very hard not to give in to her pouting.

  "Open it slower."

  "Ness..."

  She continued to pout, though instead of being a cute pout it looked pretty serious.

  "Are you making her pout again? She's been moping around all morning," Mal said as he emerged from the bathroom and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  "Unfortunately. Let's get going, Caden, before we're late," I said. Vanessa let me go reluctantly and I bid the others goodbye. I didn't want to stick around too long because deep down I knew I'd give in to Vanessa's desire to keep me at home. She knew that when I worked in the past, I would disappear for days on end. I never balanced my work and life because, well, I had no life.

  Caden and I spent the first few minutes in his truck driving in silence. It was weird to be alone with him now that the pack had grown stronger. In a way it felt like I could hear his thoughts and he could hear mine.

  "I'm guessing doctors don't have to dress up for interviews, huh," he said and nodded toward my jeans and worn out sneakers.

  "They probably should, but I'm not out to impress anybody."

  "Aren't you though?" he asked but I shrugged. "Are you sure you're up to this, Nee?" He glanced over at me before looking back to the road.

  "Yeah, I mean, what choice do I have? I can't stay home doing nothing forever."

  Caden grew quiet for a moment. "What happened last night?" he asked. For a second I contemplated lying to him, which of course wouldn't have gone over well, so I figured a lifeless version of the truth would be the better choice.

  "Mal and Vanessa got all territorial about me and then I had a panic attack. Nothing unusual, except for the fact that Xany didn't bust in all freaked out over what she picked up on."

  "Yeah, it was pretty hard to convince her to stay out of it." He chuckled.

  "She's not very good at staying out of things." I smiled when I thought of Xany. Even though she was nosey, her deep level of care and affection for all of us was endearing.

  "I've noticed. You know... I could help you."

  "Help me with what? Choose between my mates or tame their beasts enough to get along?"

  "I meant the panic attacks."

  "Are you some sort of supernatural therapist?" I glanced at him. It'd been awhile since I'd jumped into my defensive sarcastic routine, especially with Caden.

  "Xany's right about you being rude you know." He lifted a brow at me and I crossed my arms. "I'm not a therapist," he said after a short silence. He drove the truck down the winding roads that led to town and headed east. "But I am your Alpha."

  I thought about what he was trying to say. "What are you getting at?"

  "Think about something that makes you upset. I mean really think about it. Think about your worst memory," he instructed, though his voice was calm.

  "What! Why the hell would I do that?" I fought the intense desire to choke him.

  "Trust me for a minute, will ya?" His lip twitched as if he were about to smile.

  "Fine. I'm thinking about it." I crossed my arms again and flopped back against the seat.

  "No you're not."

  "Ugh," I said and rested my head against the passenger window.

  What was he playing at by asking me to think of my worst memory? What was my worst memory anyway? Everything...everything was my worst memory. I scanned my brain for something really horrible to think about, but every time I thought about my father, or even my mother, I was met with nothing but anger. Then suddenly I remembered last night. I thought about what it would be like to watch Mal and Vanessa kill each other, followed by the memory of having to pull a silver dagger out of Vanessa's stomach. I remembered how her blood pulsed through my fingers and how the soft tissue of her insides slithered across the palms of my hands. My tongue started to tingle in that familiar way and I gripped my shirt as the panic started. Flashes of teeth cracking Mal's bones, claws ripping his flesh, bore down on me.

  Caden glanced at me and I felt the truck jerk to the left just as the haze began to wash over my eyes. Then suddenly everything became clear and the panic was gone as if it had never even been. I blinked a few times and focused on the worry that I had felt but there was nothing. I patted my chest as the abrupt removal of my panic left me with a strange sensation of calm.

  "What'd you do?" I accused.

 
"Did it stop?"

  "Yes." I nodded a little overzealously.

  "Did you forget that I can tap into anything you feel?" His voice was suddenly softer.

  "No. What'd you do?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

  "I zapped it with my Alpha superpowers."

  I rubbed my chest. Not only did he seem to have stopped my panic attack but it was like he dissolved every ounce of anxiety that I had inside me. It was strange, and light. "I feel funny."

  "You must. You're constantly riddled with anxiety. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be without it." This time his gaze lingered on me a bit longer than usual before he looked back to the road. My defenses cooled again.

  "You're being all weird and formally Alpha-ish," I said.

  He laughed. "You're welcome. I can help you learn to control it, Shawnee. I just thought I should tell you."

  I thought about what he was saying. "Is it the same type of thing you can do to keep Mal and other wolves in the pack under control?"

  "The same type of thing that Alphas can do, yes. Everyone has emotions that get out of hand sometimes, especially werewolves." He was right about that. The job of an Alpha, of a dominant, was to keep everyone else in line. The unruly, the uncontrolled, and the submissives.

  "Have you ever used it on me before?"

  "Just once."

  I thought about it. "At the lake that time...when I was telling Mal about my mom."

  "Yep. I was afraid you were going to self-destruct if I didn't do something to help soothe you. I've never sensed anything like that before in a Breeder."

  "It's the same thing that dominants do to control cubs after their Firstings," I said, allowing myself to think aloud.

  "Yes, now you're getting it." He grinned. I smirked as we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. Caden parked the truck and turned in his seat to look at me.

  "Thanks," I said suddenly.

  "You're welcome." He smiled, and slipped out of the truck.

  On the walk toward the hospital, I thought about what Caden had said. My panic attacks have improved over the past several months but they certainly haven't gone away. The effects of Caden zapping my anxiety were still apparent even after we walked the quarter mile to the hospital entrance. Something inside me seemed lighter and more confident. Almost like my anxiety had been tamed rather than zapped. I guess it made sense because in essence that's what dominants and Alphas do. They dominate, contain, and tame their pack members and cubs.